In 2008, near the time Obama was elected, he stopped into the bookstore I worked at in Hyde Park. I didn’t notice the security sweeping the store because I was covertly reading a young adult novel at my post. A gravelly voice made of smoked honey dreams asked me to be let into the bathroom. It was kept locked and you had to escort people in with the store key. When I looked up into the face of Barack Obama, I audibly yelped and even more audibly dropped my young adult novel. I tripped all over myself letting him into the bathroom, and when he returned to order a very impressive, title-lost-to-memory book from me I nervously asked him, “just one copy, or two?”

He smirked (not unkindly) and said, “Just the one.”

He gave it a second and added, “For now.”

And he smirked again and bought about twenty books for his children. I think of this every time I listen to an interview with him, or am painfully awkward with someone.